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Ingka·Internal tool·2022-2023

From a week-long experiment to a validated tool

Adapting an existing internal tool, fast, to track co-worker clothing lending in stores.

CompanyIngka
UsersStore co-workers
ProductA web and mobile tool for store co-workers to track and lend out co-worker clothes
ConfidentialityThis is an internal Ingka platformNo images of the platforms and generalized content to protect confidential business

The Gist

ObjectiveTest if an existing but no-longer-needed internal tool could be used to solve a costly problem. Co-worker clothes were being handed out by hand, with no record of who had them or whether they came back.
My roleDesigned the new use case during a one-week hackathon, then led design through in-store validation and two later rounds of iteration.
OutcomeThe experiment held up. Two further rounds of design followed and other countries and stores started asking to adopt it.

The Problem

An internal tool had originally been built to let employees borrow office equipment to take home during COVID. As people returned to offices, that need faded.

Around the same time, someone had flagged a different and costly problem. Co-worker clothes in stores were handed out manually and nothing tracked who had what, or whether it ever came back. The lending mechanics we already had were close enough to be worth trying.

I joined the product already in use, built for its original purpose and led the design work to build and test it for this new case. The main constraint was the point of the exercise: we were adapting something that already existed, not designing freely from a blank page.

The Journey

01

One-week hackathon

We ran a one-week hackathon to find out whether the idea was viable. I designed while developers built in parallel.

At the end of the hackathon, we took what we'd built directly to stores and tested it with users. That confirmed the idea was useful and surfaced what was still missing.

02

Iterating After Validation

Once the research confirmed the idea was worth continuing, I moved into two further phases of work. First the order flow, the part people use most, rebuilt in a modern framework aligned with the company's design system.

Then settings, which had grown into a deep, layered navigation structure that was hard to follow. I ran remote workshops with users, including tree testing and usability testing, to work out a clearer structure.

Outcome

User research confirmed the tool solved a real problem and helped highlight what needed focus next as the product continued to develop. As the product kept evolving more countries and stores wanted to adopt it.

Takeaways

Sometimes the most valuable thing is to just build

Give a small, trusted team the space and time to move fast on an idea nobody's fully sure will work. That week worked because of how closely the team collaborated. I was designing in real time with immediate feedback. Developers were shaping ideas alongside me instead of waiting for a handoff and feasibility was part of the conversation from the first sketch, not a wall we hit later.

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